This is an improvement. At most companies, you only get a private office at the organizational president level or above. Offices are so hideous and abusive because of “open office” floorplans; even cubicles have been mostly eliminated and replaced by workstations, offering no privacy or sound dampening. Offices are abusive environments.

But this? I’ll happily accept a private dedicated office. And many workers do not want to work from home: they don’t have room to have dedicated office space, or have trouble enforcing “this is work time” with their families. This addresses that.

It’s also stupid in a couple of ways. First, it doesn’t address the one benefit of company office space: the ability to meet face-to-face. Video conference is not the same. Second, it doesn’t address the environmental impact of commuting, which I personally feel is what WFH advocates should be focusing on: collaborate with environmental activists and put pressure on large corporations on the environmental front. You can debate the relative merits is WFH; productivity decline, loss of value of in-person meetings; loss of value of hallway conversations; whatever. But what’s unassailable is the fact that commuting is terrible for the environment, even in places where public transportation doesn’t suck - and it sucks on most of the US.